What about in 10, 20 years? Photo libraries will keep inflating. Local storage will not. As of now I backup from a SSD Mac. What happens when I don't have a computer anymore?
Interestingly, people don't value "bits" or information. We value moments and emotions and work and art. There's no successful current consumer business model for people to store and backup photos (Backblaze is mainly prosumer).
And so aren't social networks the real backups by now? The redundancy of publishing on multiple services means some photos will stick and the rest will fade, somehow like former printed pictures I guess. Publish it or lose it?
External backup drives continue to increase in size at a falling cost per GB.
It is cheaper and lower latency to store/retrieve a large amount of data locally than remotely, unless you believe that the current glut of "near-free cloud storage" will continue indefinitely. Market cycles suggest otherwise.
> Publish it or lose it
Why do social networks store your photos "for free"?
> And so aren't social networks the real backups by now?
I hope not. I cringe when I see people who treat them like they are. What do you do when your account password gets cracked(it happens to people on Facebook a lot), or the site itself goes away(MySpace)? Also, you're not able to store the images in their original form; I'm pretty sure sites like these will have limitations on what you can upload. I'm not a pro-photographer by any means, but there's no way I could upload a RAW file to Facebook.
What about in 10, 20 years? Photo libraries will keep inflating. Local storage will not. As of now I backup from a SSD Mac. What happens when I don't have a computer anymore?
Interestingly, people don't value "bits" or information. We value moments and emotions and work and art. There's no successful current consumer business model for people to store and backup photos (Backblaze is mainly prosumer).
And so aren't social networks the real backups by now? The redundancy of publishing on multiple services means some photos will stick and the rest will fade, somehow like former printed pictures I guess. Publish it or lose it?